LOTRO: From the discussions I had it's the exception and I'm willing to accept that as a success.
DDO: Feels dated and reading changes made it's not receiving much actual content.
EQ2: Again feels horribly dated and from what I got it's player base isn't all that impressive.
Vanguard & Age of Conan: Last I heard either was far from popular
DCUO & APB: Doesn't fit the genre really.

The rest I have little to no knowledge about.

Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0

All of these games have seen content released at similar, or faster rates than as subscription only games, and have seen boosts to their playerbases in the longterm. If the change wasn't profitable in the longer-term, you wouldn't see games continuing to make the transition from subscription only to hybrid/F2P.

Boost in player base is a given, it's free after all. Profitability is unknown, it's not like they can transition back to subsciption once they gone free to play so any assumption regarding profits is just that, assumptions. I could just as easy assume they generate similar profits as before with the only questionable benefit being more players, I say questionable as free players can also mean more trolls and the like.

Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0

We could take a look at one of the last remaining smaller subscription games, Warhammer, for how well they're doing and how many updates their getting (And Vanguard prior to their model change).

The only thing that shows really is that the games are not good enough to maintain a subscriber base, a transition might save a game from certain death but that doesn't automatically make the transition a success, it only shows that it works as life support.

For all the supposed success in the free to play transitions we sure don't get a lot of numbers that proves that long term success, something you would think at least a couple of those developers would mention, the best I seen has been early numbers showing percentage increases in players and revenue, numbers that mean nothing without hard numbers to base those percentages on.

I never once heard Trion say "we are going to take over WoW's population". If anything Trion has proved Blizzard to be a inept incompetent developer. Blizzard has been forced to fall back on that "well I know we promised faster but it takes 6 months to deliver quality" and then they release shit with the same bugs as Trion does and they release 1 to 2 months.

If that marketing turns you away, then you got bigger issues in life. If you enjoy paying more for less content then fucking by all means continue along.

To be honest I like Rifts current size. I DESPISED the WoW player base mentality. You guys can keep the 8 year olds because I am close to 30 and that is shit I do not need to put up with.

Storm Legion has given me more stuff to do then I could even hope for.

Paying for less? less of what? WoW has tons of more features and lets not try to name them because u don't stand a chance.

Story, WoW wins hands down.

Controls, Rift is a sluggish, slow, clunky game. While WoW has the most Fluid control in any MMORPG to date.

you Despise our mentally yet u completely ignore how Delusional and messed up the RIFT player base is for even THINKING they are playing the superior game.

I am willing to let your rabid delusion pass but when you're shoving them in my face, I feel obligated to put you in your place.

Very annoying how elitest and ignorant people like you are.

think about this for a second, if rift was as well perceived by gamers as u feel it is, how come their sub numbers fell and their server were shut down?

Last edited by Linzo; 2012-12-24 at 07:08 PM.

Gamers are too obsessed with the death of games. Imagine if all that energy was channeled into the LIFE of games.

the problem isnt the game themselves but the fact that people compare subscription bases to wow. when wow launched the largest mmo currently out was everquest.. the most players it EVER had at a single time was 250,000 (you can look this up from quoted numbers from the company) .. this was considered a success in MMO's. wow launched with 2 1/2 million players on day 1. it blew blizzard out of the water which is why for the next few months we were having constant server issues and free days put on our accounts .. i state this because you need to put into perspective that wow hit with the right amount of hype, and change in the MMO genre to pull players out of all those earlier listed game.. yes despite all its flaws wow offered an obviously better experience... what mmo's today havnt done is offer a better experiance than wow. this is the reason they havnt pushed into the same realm of subscriptions. if you offer the same playstyle or simular then you more than likly wont grow based on content alone.. it has to be better than what players are currently playing to pull them away.. 500-2million is excellent for a mmo a smaller group of servers with 10k players each is just fine as long as we the players have the tools and ability to come together.

I love the F2P model, personally. I would love to see more games use it, especially the ones I play (although most the games I do play f2p).

That said.
Swtor is an example of how to not do F2P.
I think trion would know not to do what swtor did.

But then again, is it worth the risk when rift is not only amazing but growing as is?
If it ain't broke... why fix it?

Not to mention. Rift offers crazy deals on subscription fees and a way to get tons of free months.
So of the subscription model games, its probably the least stupid I have ever seen.
(That's coming from someone who hates the subscription model.)

So basically...
Don't mess with it unless trion really shows us it can do a good model like lotro or dcuo.

i personally think wow would benifit from a better free to play model. wow + previous expansions should be free to play.. current expansion (MOP) should be subscription based. as wow continues to grow older it will sell less and less. a model such as this gives those who want a chance to play or hang out with old friends the chance to do so. while also being just on the edge of enticing them to subscribe. the way wow's model stands right now .. level 20 really isnt that much of an experience to entice people to play.. you want these people making friends and want to experiance the newer things, to honeslty become addicted to your game the same way most of us were when we first started.. this is how you grow as the game gets older.. no restrictions.. just free to play and download for everything but the current expansion.. i think we would see a population explosion as new players and old come back just to say hi to thier friends and "check things out" who knows.. some may even subscribe.

Buy to play with raiding a monthly sub, but keep the dungeons and open world events free. Have a cash shop for cosmetic, fun items like mini pets and town cloths and the like.

no no no no no no no no no no

Sorry if this response is frowned upon, but fuck cash shops. Fuck them all. This is a subscription game. This game is challenging, well designed, well updated. Just putting in a cash shop is going to effect one or all of those qualities. If this game ever goes free to play and has a cash shop, my MMO soul will basically be dead.

Rift population is steadily increasing as support for Trion and the drastic improvement of the game recently, it would be unwise to shake the faith of the player-base by turning f2p.

What's funny is that out of all the subscription based MMOs still on the market, Rift is the one I'd say most deserves to be sub based and I don't even play it. They offer solid content on a faster basis than pretty much any other game out there.

Despite WoW having more subscribers, I feel that they're offerring less than Rift as value on the subscription. Until it becomes a necessity, Rift should stay sub based as it allows steady funding for the content they're delivering.

I'm personally against it. I rather much prefer a subscription cost than the developers having to make a bloated cash shop in order to get the revenue needed to keep developing at the pace they do (and Trion bring out patches and content quicker than you can say 'omgwhenisthenextpatch!'). While even subscription based MMO's are implementing cash shops the last years (like WoW, and Rift has a Tiger mount you can buy), it's no where near as "bad" as free to play MMO's.

Take The Secret World for example. Now they've removed the mandatory subscription fee, you can buy potions that increase your experience gain for a set amount of time, with a cooldown. In otherwords, the more money you spend the quicker you gain Ability Points etc. I don't want Rift heading down the "pay2win" road.

Now I know this is not what you mentioned in your post OP, you're more talking about a free 1-49, but at the end of the day, what's the point of leveling all the way to 49 if you don't plan to pay to be able to get to max level? A free 1-20 (what we currently have) is a big difference than a free 1-49.

Take The Secret World for example. Now they've removed the mandatory subscription fee, you can buy potions that increase your experience gain for a set amount of time, with a cooldown. In otherwords, the more money you spend the quicker you gain Ability Points etc. I don't want Rift heading down the "pay2win" road.

That's utter nonsense.

Firstly, Rift has no comparable system least Trion invent one to sell for profit. An unlikely prospect. Secondly, it should be of no concern to other players the speed or ease by which another comes to the a given threshold in game.

Take The Secret World for example. Now they've removed the mandatory subscription fee, you can buy potions that increase your experience gain for a set amount of time, with a cooldown. In otherwords, the more money you spend the quicker you gain Ability Points etc. I don't want Rift heading down the "pay2win" road.

How are experience potions winning, out of curiosity? The end-goal is to hit level cap (or the rough equivalent in TSW, which if I understand correctly is more determined by the QL gear than anything else), at which point experience does little to nothing (depending on what game you play) to your overall power.

Rift has PA levels, for example, but each individual level is an extremely minor increase in power at best. Even then, it's quite easy to only have experience boosts apply to leveling experience and not PA experience. Getting to 60 super fast is great and all, but you still have to grind out the dungeons and IS's to get gear, and that's something you can't really effectively do by yourself.